Confocal laser scanning microscopy is fast becoming a necessary and routinely used instrument in contemporary studies of cell biology. UT has one such microscope (Dept. of Anatomy), but it is overburdened to the point that delays of up to two weeks are routinely encountered; this is wasting significant research time and needlessly diminishing research productivity. To solve this problem, 33 investigators from 11 departments with an annual research budget of 7,831,873 dollars, request funds to purchase a confocal laser scanning microscope. The newly acquired confocal microscope facility will provide expanded capacities, e.g. the ability to perform live cell fluorescence studies using probes that require excitation wavelengths in either the UV or visible light spectrum. The requested instrument will be administered by the UT Molecular Resource Center (MRC), a university-wide core facility that has provided oligonucleotides (43,600 bp/yr), automated DNA sequencing (591,000 bp in 1997), flow cytometry (144,000 analyses/yr), monoclonal cell line construction and antibody production (15 in 1997), digital imaging of phase-fluorescence microscopy (est. 1991), and phosphorimaging (est. Nov., 1997) for the past 11 years. Strong institutional support from the chancellor (50,000 dollars) and the MRC (55,000 dollars) have been committed to this facility. The MRC will support a technician, who will be responsible for daily operation of the confocal facility and technical training of new users. Many infra- structural elements necessary for broad and successful use of a confocal microscope are already in place. All MRC data (sequencing, flow cytometry, phosphorimaging, fluorescence-imaging) are available both at the facility and remotely in investigator's laboratories through a campus-wide network. Multi-platform data handling via Macintosh Power PC and Windows NT-based work stations are also available through the MRC, and a full service molecular graphics facility for production of publication quality hard copy images from digital sources has been staffed and operated for 9 years. A Zeiss LSM 510 on an Axiovert 100M base has been selected so that the wide range of research applications needed by campus investigators can be accommodated. This facility will increase the efficiency with which campus-wide NIH and other research funds are used and make this technology readily available to our most junior faculty who will be among its greatest users. The requested instrument will used for a diverse set of research projects encompassing such traditional confocal applications as protein trafficking and localization in mammalian cells, to virus assembly land entry, to more novel applications such as studying the three-dimensional architecture of bacterial biofilms.